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I will become this man

Now I'm sure a lot of people have seen this legendary commercial with the epic old spice man, but never really gave it any thought, like me. I went out and bought old spice because after using this fine-smelling product, ANYTHING IS POSSIBLE. This man didn't take advantage of his abilities. I would go above and beyond and ride on top of a jet while feeding a monkey. I would steal his idea by having diamonds flow out of my hands and make millions of dollars as my form of income. Its incredibly convincing, is it not? Unfortunately, this commercial made extraordinary claims with no evidence to support it. According to the book, this principle states "the more a claim contradicts what we already know, the more persuasive the evidence must be before we accept it." This commercial would need an incredible amount of evidence in order to be logically accepted. Will this happen to anyone? This can't be tested and is scientifically impossible. I wish I had taken this class before the purchase, its all lies! I wasn't able to make diamonds flow out of my hands, I remain heavily disappointed.

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12 Comments

I do strongly agree that this advertisement lacks the extraordinary evidence to support its claim. From my own personal experiences when viewing it, along with many others I am sure, the man's claims are not even plausible to those of us living in today's society. I mean sure, it hasn't been proven impossible that extraordinary things can happen as a result of using the product. However, what lacks is the extraordinary evidence to support it, just as you stated. The fact that the claims are not falsifiable also signals a red flag; since none of the claims can be tested experimentally, there is no way of obtaining the extraordinary evidence necessary.

I agree that this advertisement makes many extraordinary claims that can't be proven but I don't think that it is necessarily trying to get us to believe these claims. By being over the top about the effects of the product, it does not get us to expect this from the product, but rather gets us to subconsciously have positive associations with their product.

The extraordinary claims that are conveyed through this advertisement are definitely not backed up by extraordinary evidence. I mean, as we learned in our text, adrenaline is what makes humans able to accomplish incredible physical feats, not a fresh smelling body odor. With that aside, I also feel that the fact that the old spice guy doesn't have extraordinary evidence is unimportant because it's simply used for humor and as the previous commenter said, to have consumers subconsciously associate the idea of manliness with their product. Overall, I agree with your statement but feel that it's used for the sake of humor - not to scientifically prove anything.

I agree with what you wrote because there is not extraordinary claim through this advertisement and it cant be proved. We do need to take this class early rather than just purchase under lying.But as the shopper, I think whether this advertisement has extraordinary evidence or not is not important and just as the previous commenter said that it is used for the sake of humor-not to scientifically prove anything.

Realistically, I definitely agree with your view on the old spice commercials. However, taking into account the extraordinary claims being made by the old spice man, the purpose of the commercials is to humor the targeted demographic. The commercials are not to be taken in a literal sense. In my opinion, I feel that old spice did a great job with this ad campaign because it generated buzz about the product, and most important, it's memorable. Yes, the claims are stretched, but in all honest, a half naked guy with a deep, suave and sexy voice rubbing deodorant on his body is not to be taken seriously!

I am so sorry to hear that you are as disappointed with the product as you claim; however, this use of extraordinary claims is intended to bring humor to viewers as opposed to cold, hard facts. I agree that there isn't nearly enough "extraordinary support" for all of the claims made, but when you have a half naked man making these claims on national television the claims are most likely intended for entertainment purposes not scientific reporting. This is definitely a great example of an extraordinary claim and could be used to show some of the extremes that researchers can go to to prove their points but this is also an example that should be taken lightly. I agree with the above comment, the first sign that these claims don't even need support because they are meant for humor more than anything else is that the man is half naked, speaking in a deep sexy voice and is advertising a deodorant product.

I am so sorry to hear that you are as disappointed with the product as you claim; however, this use of extraordinary claims is intended to bring humor to viewers as opposed to cold, hard facts. I agree that there isn't nearly enough "extraordinary support" for all of the claims made, but when you have a half naked man making these claims on national television the claims are most likely intended for entertainment purposes not scientific reporting. This is definitely a great example of an extraordinary claim and could be used to show some of the extremes that researchers can go to to prove their points but this is also an example that should be taken lightly. I agree with the above comment, the first sign that these claims don't even need support because they are meant for humor more than anything else is that the man is half naked, speaking in a deep sexy voice and is advertising a deodorant product.

I am greatly entertained to see this commercial scrutinized, however, I regret to inform you that this commercial was created to be so ridiculous and unrealistic that nobody would question its validity. If they would have cast Billy Mays instead of Isaiah Mustafa, perhaps more people would have brought this commercial's validity into question. While the product may not have allowed me to turn tickets into diamonds, it did hold true that while I was using it I was half naked, attractive, and could speak in a deep sexy voice as mentioned in the comment above (or at least that is how I had percieved myself).

This commercial is a huge example of extraordinary claims, but I agree with you in saying that a lot of products are falsely advertised in the media. Yes, diamonds won't pour out of your hands when using Old Spice, but some products lack the performance that you would actually expect when purchasing that product. For example, I have a Magic Bullet at home and the infomercials demonstrate all of the chopping and blending functions of this machine. However, I was very disappointed when trying to make a simple smoothie,the product was weak and didn't perform as how I expected. An extraordinary claim was made that this product can blend ice in 3 seconds, and this was not the case in my experience.

There are a lot of products that suggest things that will/should happen if we buy them, but everyone should always be cautious of things. As a mom of 2, I am constantly checking labels and making sure what I am buying and giving my kids is safe and will not hurt them. Yes, there are extraordinary claims in this particular advertisement, but honestly, if you saw a man that was getting all the girls because he wrestled lions, would you do it too? Its kinda like that old saying, "if all of your friends were jumping off a bridge, would you do it too?"

It may appear that the diamonds are flowing out of his hand and that he magically appeared on a horse but it should be considered that their could be a simpler explanation to these strange events. With the help of OCCAM'S RAZOR, one of the principles of scientific thinking, we can discover a simpler solution to the happenings in the commercial. Instead of diamonds randomly flowing from his hand due to his good smelling body, they could have actually been digitally photoshopped in with special effects. This explanation is a lot more plausible and should be considered over the former!

I think there is much more than just extraordinary claims going on. You also have replicability, if you want to bring up the principles! I guarantee there is not one person out there that is able to do the things the old spice man does in the commercial, JUST by using old spice products. Yet, this is society today. With our new technological advances post 1800 industrial revolution, we have the capabilities of making commercials of this sort. If this commercial were to play back 100 years ago, people would have fell out of their chairs because they would not have believed what was going on. One, because of the technology we have today, but two, also because of the factors that you mentioned!